On June 25, as tennis lovers raptly followed the progress of Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, Serena Williams and her sister Venus on the grass courts in England, a separate Wimbledon drama was happening stateside.

That day, JP Morgan Investment Management closed on the purchase of The Wimbledon from P&H Associates. The building, a 28-story, 230-unit apartment complex at 200 East 82nd Street on the Upper East Side, sold for $150 million.

“The credit crunch has taken its toll on the multifamily market in Manhattan over the last year, with very few transactions completed, but the sale of The Wimbledon ─ at such a strong pricing level ─ verifies there is still a market for prominent buildings with strong fundamentals,” said Jubeen Vaghefi, a managing director at Jones Lang LaSalle, in a statement.  read more »

After months of uncertainty, one of the Upper East Side’s most popular street vendors, Tony Dragonas, settled a suit with the Health Department over violations that had threatened his license and livelihood, allowing him to continue operating his famed food cart on 62nd Street and Madison Avenue.

Once a deal was reached, Mr. Dragonas, his 19-year-old son, Dana, and a dozen of his regular customers who had trekked to the Financial District to testify on his behalf hurried uptown to the same spot he has occupied for 23 years to celebrate, just in time to serve the hungry hordes lined up every day during the lunchtime rush.

Over a year ago, one of Mr. Dragonas’ neighbors filed a complaint about excessive smoke from the cart, and the Health Department began making inspections about three times a month, he said. Between Nov. 29, 2006, and Oct. 31, 2007, Mr. Dragonas was cited for 19 health code violations, many of which stemmed from minor infractions like failing to wear a hat, vending too close to the crosswalk, or putting a cooler on the ground.  read more »

The Daily News and The Times over the weekend ran stories about Mayor Bloomberg's responsibility regarding the Friday crane collapse on the Upper East Side that killed two people.  read more »

“We're like refugees," said Chris Ryan, 28, one of an estimated few hundred residents forced to evacuate seven Upper East Side buildings this morning following the collapse of a crane that killed at least two people.

Mr. Ryan, temporarily wallet-less, lives at 1748 First Avenue, between 90th and 91st streets. But this afternoon he was inside Richard R. Greene High School, on 88th Street, where officials had set up a First Aid center.

The Observer fanned out this morning and afternoon to interview people directly impacted by the collapse. The overwhelming emotion? Anger.  read more »

Governor Paterson and Mayor Bloomberg spoke at a hastily organized press conference scheduled for 11:15 a.m. at the site of this morning's crane collapse on the Upper East Side.

This morning, a crane at the site of the Azure condop development at First Avenue and 91st Street tumbled onto the building across the street, damaging it from the 20th floor to the Duane Reade on the ground floor, and killing at least one person (if not two, depending on reports).  read more »

Incredible. Another crane has collapsed in Manhattan, according to media reports, killing at least one person and wreaking yet more havoc on the East Side.

"The crane, which was apparently being used for a construction project at 354 East 91st Street, on the northwest corner of the intersection, collapsed onto the north facade of the white-brick building at the southwest corner of 91st Street and First Avenue. The damage extends from the building’s top floor, about 20 stories up, to the second floor, just above a Duane Reade drug store."

The second crane collapse this year comes just days after the city announced it would no longer require Buildings Department inspectors to be on site during crane jumps, instead relying on a system of surprise inspections.

On March 15, a 22-story crane collapsed on East 51st Street, killing seven people and leading to the resignation of Buildings Commissioner Patricia Lancaster.

Update 9:57 a.m.

This building, a condop development called the Azure, has received 17 complaints this year, seven of which pertained to the crane, according to the Department of Buildings Web site.  read more »

Mayor Bloomberg has reportedly been a little moody as he nears the twilight of his term and focuses on shoring up his political legacy, according to the The New York Times. Now it appears that the self-made billionaire mayor is focusing on putting his house--or houses--in order in more ways than one.

The mayor has transferred ownership of two of his Upper East Side homes to the Michael R. Bloomberg Revocable Trust, of which he is the principal trustee, city records show. The trust now has the deed on the 2,200-square-foot, fifth-floor condo at 610 Park Avenue that he bought just a few weeks before his inauguration in 2002 and the 7,012-square-foot townhouse at 17 East 79th Street (valued at $13.5 million, according to PropertyShark) that he has owned for 22 years.  read more »

It’s that time of year when thousands of recent college graduates descend upon Manhattan for their obligatory, pre-suburban stint in the city.

Manhattan’s rental market is traditionally the tightest from May to August and early September—apartment-hunting season for newly christened young professionals.

After their hopes of living below 23rd Street in quasi-bohemian squalor are dashed by a broker, the Manhattan newbie has just a few neighborhoods to choose from.

The first place they look is Manhattan’s unofficial frat district Murray Hill—er, "Murray Hell," that "mini-Manhattan theme park" full of "coddled post-collegians, armed with marketing jobs and U. Penn diplomas," which The Observer's Lizzy Ratner examined in a 2005 profile.

A decade ago, when the Real Estate Group COO Daniel Baum first noticed the trend, the neighborhood’s main draw was affordability.

Yet, even steadily rising rents have not diminished prepsters' love for the East Side nabe.  read more »

The Upper East Side co-op where the late antique book dealer Madeleine B. Stern lived and worked for over 50 years has been sold for $2.6 million, city records show.

Stern is credited with discovering what The New York Times called, “Louisa May Alcott’s long-lost Gothic tales of murder, sexual subjugation, opium dens and other things simply too dreadful to mention.”  read more »

In my Manhattan Tranfers item today on gold watch guru Benny Shabtai’s townhouse at 870 Park Avenue, I tried to figure out why someone who couldn’t sell his house in 2006 for $19.9 million would try selling it now for $33 million.

The Brown Harris managing director John Burger, who isn’t involved with the listing, gave me this explanation for why Upper East Side buyers might actually like the $13.1 million difference: “A $5,000 dress in a window on Madison Avenue is much more interesting to a woman than a $1,000 dress,” he said. “It’s true.”  read more »